1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an arbitration device, an arbitration method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, in offices, there are installed electrical devices such as personal computers (PCs) that are used by the users as well as devices such as air-conditioning devices and lighting devices that have an impact on the work environment. In offices, it is desirable that making the work environment more comfortable leads to achieving an enhancement in the productivity. For that reason, for example, instead of taking measures such as turning down the temperature settings of the air-conditioning devices during summertime with the aim of saving energy, sometimes it is desirable to properly maintain the preset temperature so as to make the work environment comfortable.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2010-193562 and in “Energy on Demand over SmartTap Network”, Yuasa Kenji et al., IEICE, USN2011-11, pp. 25-30, July 2011; power control systems are disclosed that control the supply of the electrical power to electrical devices in such a way that energy saving is achieved without undermining the quality of life. For example, in “Energy on Demand over SmartTap Network”, Yuasa Kenji et al., IEICE, USN2011-11, pp. 25-30, July 2011; a technology is proposed in which priority for devices is set according the characteristics of the devices and according to the time slots, and the devices having higher priority are supplied with the electrical power.
However, in such methods, the priority is set according to the functionality of stand-alone devices. Therefore, the electrical power may not be supplied to the devices which truly require it. For example, if the user of a PC moves away from keyboard while leaving the PC ON, the electrical power is continuously supplied to the PC because there is no change in the priority of the PC. In this way, sometimes the electrical power gets supplied to the devices that do not require it, thereby making it difficult to efficiently supply the electrical power to the devices that are used to make the work environment comfortable.
Besides, in an office in which a plurality of staff members is working, the behavior of each staff member is different from hour to hour. Hence, in a conventional method in which the priority is set by taking into account the time used by the devices, it is difficult to achieve an efficient electrical power supply.
In view of the abovementioned issues, there is a need to provide an arbitration device, an arbitration method, and a computer program product that enable controlling the electrical power supply to the devices in an efficient manner.